Lizzy's face on the papers blowing in the wind

Lizzy's face on the screens

Lizzy's face on the street billboard

with a homeless man leaning against it.

Lizzy's face on the Jumbotron

Lizzy's face on the defense industry tweets

Lizzy's face on the arrest warrants

for the criminals who said "Not my king."

Lizzy's face on our money

Lizzy's face in my face

Lizzy's face on an artillery shell

funded by the British taxpayer

and fired by a man wearing neo-Nazi insignia.

Lizzy's face on the telly before it cuts out

because there's no power

because it was either electricity or groceries.

Lizzy's face on the food banks

Lizzy's face on the price hikes

Lizzy's face on the blankets shivering bodies cling to

when they can't afford to heat their homes.

Lizzy's face in their mind's eye

Lizzy's face in their prayers

Lizzy's face in their nightmares

as they huddle close together for warmth.

Lizzy's face on the news man's face

on the politician's face

on the banker's face

on the billionaire's face

on the warmaker's face

on the empire's face.

Lizzy's face on the nuclear missiles

Lizzy's face on the drums of war

Lizzy's face on the melting permafrost

and the gasping oceans and the plastic in our blood.

Lizzy's face in my chest like a nauseating lump

rising up through my throat and out into the toilet

spraying out my mouth and all over the bathroom

and all over the universe get that dead bitch the fuck out of us.

Puke Lizzy's face out of our animal bodies

so we can run free like wildebeests hatching hearts and songbird throats

no longer frozen by the bank boys and bastards

and the grayness of the false world they painted in our minds.

Let our animal bodies remember our animal ways

and forget any context wherein Lizzy's face everywhere made sense.

There are lovers who need loving

and a world that needs saving

and a whole lot of signs

that are in sore need of vandals.

_________________

Reading by Tim Foley.